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There’s No Such Thing as a Free Launch

"If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in five years there'd be a shortage of sand." — Milton Friedman

As President Obama took office in 2009, I sold electronic health records, which track a patient’s medical history by computer instead of by hand. For a couple of decades, companies like mine had helped medical providers save money while they improved their patients’ quality of care. Once we installed and launched EHR software at a doctor’s office or hospital, it was a win for everyone.

Many in the EHR industry were thrilled when Congress passed Obama’s “stimulus” package since it included nearly $20 billion of incentives to help doctors and hospitals purchase software. D.C. is opening the money spigot, manufacturers thought. Let the good times roll!

As any free-market advocate knows, there’s no such thing as a free lunch — or a free software launch. The feds provided yet another object lesson in the perils of government intervention.

Before the industry could start raking in that “free money,” they only needed one clarification. To receive one of Congress’ incentive payments, providers had to show that they are “meaningfully using” their EHRs. Since Congress added that two-word phrase to the 1000-page stimulus legislation, they must have a quick definition right? They should get back to us by the end of the day, and we can get to selling! Okay, maybe by the end of the week? Err… end of the month?

Fifteen months later, a sub-suboffice in the Department of Health and Human Services dropped a stack of dead trees on the industry. The simple two-word phrase had ballooned into a 650-page “interim final rule” which defined “meaningful use” through a series of new regulations, certifications, quality checks and best practices that your local family doctor had to follow if he wanted his slice of government cheese.

Since that interim rule contained several contradictory demands, meaningless requirements and flat-out errors, the HHS later released a “final rule” weighing in at 850 pages. But that was only “Stage 1” of meaningful use; Stages 2 and 3 were promised in the years ahead.

Oh, and in the meantime, Congress passed Obamacare, which added 2,700 pages of new rules never mentioned by HHS's CMS/ONC 850-page EHR Meaningful Use Final Rule (Stage 1). Have a headache yet? Don’t worry; I had one for a year and a half straight. Overnight, my job changed from helping customers to dissecting turgid bureaucratese and offering my own Talmudic interpretations.

As is so often the case, what was intended to “help” instead created a regulatory nightmare. I assume that most of you didn’t know much about the EHR industry nor did you care. But expand this one tiny example into the entirety of government incentives, special tax breaks and outright crony capitalism.

For every highly publicized Cash for Clunkers, Solyndra, or pork-filled Sandy relief bill, there are hundreds of untold stories of wasted time, money and effort by workers in nearly every field. You probably have stories of your own that blow mine away.

“Free money” leads to new rules. When the rules don’t work, even more rules are created with new federal agencies to interpret, measure and enforce them. Then the next president decides the whole system is an over-complicated mess, so he orders more “improvement.” Lather, rinse, repeat.

Perhaps this vicious circle of idiocy could be indulged in good economic times, but $16 trillion in debt later, we no longer have the luxury. It’s past time for every American in every industry to start brown-bagging it. History proves that it will be a lot cheaper than the “free” lunch Washington is offering.

Bureaucracy too large? I find the creation of "Homeland Security" a waste of $46.9M/2012. We supposedly (?) have the best military, intelligence community in the world and yet Bush43 felt it necessary to begin and entire new cabinet position and bloated government agency? Talk about idiocy!

And how many BILLIONS have we spent, and continue to spend, with the use of court time for all of the ridiculous arguments created by the misunderstanding of two words in The Constitution; "well-regulated militia?" More money wasted and as each case goes to court? More and more the gun lobby is "refining" (read constricting) personal freedoms with their challenges as the rulings make definitions that weren't there to begin with, they define it all now.

We have Senators wasting government money by filibustering rather than openly arguing and refining their points to bring common ground and effective governance to this country. NO, we have to have those who would rather build page after page of committee work on specious accusations than actually do the work they were elected to do. Ridiculous!

Time to stop the unilateral Congress of Mitch McConnell and Eric Cantor and have them do their jobs instead of wasting tax dollars with their franking privileges and flights home to their districts where they report on what? That their grandstanding has all but stopped effective governance in the USA. How sad and pathetic. The world is watching and the downgrade in the credit rating is evidence of its disapproval.

In her speech before the annual NAACP conference, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said ““The Affordable Care Act is the most powerful law for reducing health disparities since Medicare and Medicaid were created in 1965, the same year the Voting Rights Act was also enacted…The same arguments against change, the same fear and misinformation that opponents used then are the same ones opponents are spreading now.

Many outside Oregon have written off the state as a perennial loss for conservatives, owing to its deep blue liberal reputation. This reputation is brilliantly depicted in the IFC show Portlandia, which many Oregon natives view more as a documentary than a comedy. But the politics of Oregon are a much more complex stew of several influences, including a deep libertarian streak and strong conservative values - especially outside the Portland metro area.

A crack has opened in the ObamaCare dike.
In a stunning setback for the controversial health care law's supporters, 22 House Democrats yesterday joined 227 Republicans to delay its linchpin provision, the individual mandate.
In so doing, they revealed the law's Achilles heel.
Senate Republicans should capitalize on this breakthrough by forcing a vote on the mandate delay as soon as possible.

The White House has issued a veto threat for two House bills to repeal parts of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). In a dishonest statement, the administration claimed that a bill putting into law the administration's unilateral decision to delay the employer mandate was "unnecessary", and that delay of the individual mandate would cause people to lose their insurance.

Ohio Governor John Kasich is now insisting the Obamacare Medicaid expansion “is not about Obamacare,” in an attempt to message his fight for new deficit spending around conservative opposition and months of bad news about President Obama’s unpopular 2010 health law.

Last week, three presidents of the largest unions sent an open letter to Congress demanding reforms to ObamaCare. James P. Hoffa, General President of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Joseph Hansen, International President of UFCW, and D. Taylor, President of UNITE-HERE, have some serious concerns on how ObamaCare will hurt their members.

As one of our millions of FreedomWorks members nationwide, I urge you to contact your Representative and urge him or her to vote YES on H.R. 2668, the Fairness for American Families Act. Sponsored by Rep. Todd Young (R-IN), this bill—which the House is expected to take up this week—would delay ObamaCare’s “individual mandate.

In the wake of the Obama administration admitting the failure of Obamacare, several members of Congress want to defund this awful law. That's a great idea. Congress should not stop there though, but should insist on full repeal.